


Never in a Real Fight

by Laylah



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sexswap, F/F, Sparring, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-11
Updated: 2011-12-11
Packaged: 2017-10-27 04:44:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/291747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You should know," she says, and Des wants to think she's straining for that calm tone, "that never works in a real fight." She doesn't pull away.</p><p>Des meets her eyes, and smiles at the banked, hungry attention she reads there. "How about in a friendly sparring match?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never in a Real Fight

Des's arms tremble, and sweat drips from her temples; her pecs feel like they're just this side of actually _on fire_ , but she presses the bar up into another set anyway. Up to half extension and back down until the bar just brushes her chest, then again, four half-presses before the release of full extension. She takes a deep, shaky breath. One more set, she tells herself. One more set and she can take the weight down a little.

She squeezes her eyes shut and tries to bring the bar down slowly, keeping control of it. Down until the muscles fully flex, and then push—

Des can feel the instant when her body decides that no, enough is enough, when her muscles just turn to water and she _can't_ keep going. Her hands slip and her arms drop—and Lucy is _there_ , instantly, fast enough to catch the bar with a grunt of effort before it can land on Des's collarbone or her throat.

"Pushing yourself pretty hard, aren't you?" Lucy asks as she lifts the bar—in a bicep curl, god, what Des wouldn't give to be able to _curl_ that much weight—to set it back on the crosspiece of the bench. "You haven't been doing this for all that long."

"I know," Des says. She gropes for her towel on the floor beside the bench, then wipes her face and sits up. "It doesn't feel that way, though. I mean...I have all this muscle memory from the Animus, but...." She gestures to the climbing wall on the other side of the gym. "I don't have the strength to do what my body remembers being capable of."

Lucy makes a sympathetic face. "It must be frustrating," she says. "But try to be patient with yourself, okay? You'll get there, if you don't injure yourself first."

Des nods. "Claudia just makes it all feel so damn easy," she says.

"At the point where you started synchronizing with Claudia," Lucy says, "she had been training in secret for years."

"I can't afford years," Des says. The Assassins' fight with the Templars is entirely too volatile lately, moving entirely too fast.

Lucy shrugs. "You also don't have to hide your training from your overprotective brothers," she points out. "It should balance out." She unzips her hoodie and strips it off; underneath she's wearing a tank top, baring the lean, corded muscles of her arms and shoulders. "You want to go for a hand-to-hand session, or have you already worn yourself out completely?"

Des rolls her shoulders and cracks her neck, trying to gauge how much she's really exhausted and how much she just needed a break for a minute. "I think I'm still up for you kicking my ass a little."

"When you take that kind of attitude into a fight, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, you know," Lucy says.

Des presses her hands together in a gesture she learned from Altaïr. "I hear and understand, Master."

The half-second where Lucy looks flustered—before she rolls her eyes and drops into a ready stance—is really cute. "Okay, smartass," she says, "how about you show me how well you understand."

Since she got away from the Farm, Des hasn't ever trained seriously in a fighting style—she's picked up a few things here and there, dropped in on the occasional free martial arts class to keep herself from losing touch entirely, but she hasn't kept up with any one thing enough to get in the habits of a particular style. Which isn't as much of a handicap as it could be, because it means that now she's letting Claudia's (and Altaïr's, too, but mostly Claudia's; Altaïr's muscles and center of gravity don't match hers very well) memories guide her. Fighting like an Assassin is less a matter of specific moves—except where the hidden blade is concerned, anyway—and more a matter of knowing how to wrest control from an opponent as quickly as possible.

Lucy knows that too, of course, which means she doesn't give Des any room to maneuver. She feints with a high kick, pulling it when Des moves to block, stepping into the opening that makes. Des gets out of the way of the punch just fast enough, deflecting it so she feels the impact in her forearm but doesn't get winded. She grabs for Lucy's hair—keeping it long like that is an advantage when you want to pass for non-threatening and pretty, but no help at all in a fight—but Lucy's too fast, knocking her legs out from under her so Des has to roll to avoid being pinned.

Figures she'd be good at compensating for that. It's probably too obvious as a vulnerability. Des rolls into a crouch, ready to get up and go for round two, and then like a flicker of stray light through the Animus she sees the other option, and she takes it: not rising but diving, catching Lucy at the knees to bring her down. Lucy twists to avoid injury, and when she hits the mat Des tries to get her pinned—this is her best chance, if she wants to win this.

She's too slow, though, her arms like jello and her breath coming short. Lucy gets an elbow into her solar plexus and knocks Des back and there is _nothing_ like oxygen deprivation to put you off your game. By the time Des manages to take another gasping breath she's on her back with Lucy's weight on her thighs. She throws her arms up to block the obvious next attack and sure, _now_ she can get hold of Lucy's ponytail—but Lucy gets around her guard in the same moment, pressing her knuckles against the pulse of Des's carotid. A clean kill, if she had her blade on. Shit.

The crazy part is, despite the threat—because of the threat? No, Des is going with _despite_ , thanks—it's pretty hot. Lucy's fit and good looking, and Des had been going through kind of a dry spell even before Abstergo picked her up. And Lucy isn't letting her go, knuckles pressed against Des's hammering pulse, her other hand planted on the mat beside Des's head. "Not too bad," she says.

"Yeah?" Des says. _Not too bad_ is still a ways off from _good enough_ , but for today she'll take it. She looks up, meeting Lucy's eyes, admiring the flush of exertion across her cheekbones. "Thanks." She can always blame Claudia for what she does next: she turns her head and presses her lips to Lucy's knuckles, sensual and slow, letting her tongue drag along the crease between them.

Lucy's hiss of breath is sharp, and her thighs tense. "You should know," she says, and Des wants to think she's straining for that calm tone, "that never works in a real fight." She doesn't pull away.

Des meets her eyes, and smiles at the banked, hungry attention she reads there. "How about in a friendly sparring match?"

"Tell me this isn't the bleeding effect," Lucy says.

Or she can _not_ blame Claudia, if that's what Lucy needs. "I'm surprised that wasn't in my records somewhere," Des says. "It seems like knowing my type would be helpful for somebody trying to catch my weak spots."

Lucy licks her lips. Her tongue is a shade darker pink than her lip gloss. "You didn't seem interested before."

"At Abstergo?" Des asks. "When you and Vidic were doing your good cop-bad cop routine?" She shakes her head. "Not really a scene I'm into, there."

"Okay, that's fair," Lucy says. "And this _is_ a scene you're into?"

Des looks down pointedly: most of Lucy's weight still rests on her thighs. "Losing a fight to an attractive, dangerous woman and winding up pinned?" She shrugs. "It has a certain appeal, yeah."

Lucy actually smiles at that. "Winning a fight with an attractive, dangerous woman is pretty appealing, too," she says. She leans down in one smooth, graceful motion and claims Des's mouth in a hot, wet kiss.

Des moans, arching up to pull her down closer: one hand between Lucy's shoulderblades, the other threading into her hair. Lucy's teeth graze her bottom lip, catch it and tug; Des's fingers clench tighter in Lucy's hair, pulling until Lucy moans, too. She tastes the chemical-berry sweetness of Lucy's lip gloss and the sharp salt of sweat, and her trembling, exhausted muscles still sing with pleasure.

Lucy's the first one to go for the clothes, grabbing the hem of Des's t-shirt and pulling it up. Des goes along with that part just fine, but she pushes Lucy's hand away from the zipper down the front of her sports bra. In Claudia's adventures with the courtesans she tends to just stay bound, and they don't push that, and it's...it feels like a relief.

Lucy doesn't push it, either—she raises an eyebrow for a second as she sits back, but she doesn't ask. And she lets Des peel her tank top up and off, bares her breasts without hesitation. They're small and soft, pale against Des's brown hands, and her nipples are already stiffening even before Des catches them between her fingers and twists. She hisses at that, her back arching, and Des's clit throbs.

"Let me see you," Des says. "God, you're gorgeous."

And you know, she'd have thought Lucy would know that damn well—she's got mirrors, right?—but there's still a moment there where Lucy looks flustered and grateful to hear it. "I bet you say that to all the girls," she says as she rolls off Des's thighs and kicks off her sneakers.

"Only the ones who can kick my ass," Des says, hooking her fingers in the waistband of Lucy's track pants and pulling them down. Lucy's thighs have the same sleek, muscular power as her shoulders, flexing smoothly as she moves.

"I hope you're going to do more with that clever tongue than just flirt," Lucy says, skinning out of her practical cotton panties.

Des grins. "The pleasure would be all mine."

Lucy rolls her eyes. "You're spending _entirely_ too much time with the Auditore family, aren't you?"

"You tell me," Des says, and gets down on the mat between Lucy's thighs.

The smell of Lucy's cunt makes her mouth water. She nuzzles her way up the soft inside of Lucy's thigh—sometimes when she's feeling obnoxious or she knows she's with someone who'll like it, Des bites a little, but if Lucy _doesn't_ go for that, the consequences seem like they could hurt pretty badly. Discretion is the better part of first-time hookups with Assassins, or something.

She parts the lips of Lucy's cunt with her tongue, tasting her, humming at the warm musky salt. Lucy shivers, arching her back, rocking her hips to guide Des's attention. Her breath comes in audible gasps, harsh and ragged, and she makes a sweet, throaty noise when Des teases back the hood of her clit. She reaches down and runs her fingers through the short fuzz of Des's hair—too short to get a grip on, so she cradles the back of Des's head to hold her in place. "There," she says, "yes."

Des laughs. She's not going anywhere, not when she finally has Lucy spread out for her like this, sweet on her tongue and moaning for her. She lets the timbre of Lucy's moans guide her, takes the trembling of Lucy's thighs as encouragement. For once, one of the first times since she was dragged into Abstergo's labs in the first place, she feels like she knows what she's doing, like she's _not_ out of her depth. And Lucy's gorgeous; making her come undone, taking that polished professional exterior and stripping it down to this beautiful raw core—Des aches all over with need and heat, wanting her, wanting this: the climax that thrums through Lucy's whole body, the gasping sobs she makes, the rush of fluid against Des's tongue.

Lucy pulls away herself before Des is quite through tasting her, flinching away like she's too sensitive for more. Something to remember for the future, then. "God," she says, "you— _damn_ , Des." She pulls Des close to kiss her, sloppy and wet, her mouth hungry. Her teeth scrape Des's lip, and she's talking into the kiss, muffled and desperate. "Tell me what you want, what I can—Des, god."

This is always the harder part, but fuck it, Lucy's an Assassin, she'll understand that sometimes you need to be careful with people's quirks. "Okay," Des says, taking a deep breath. "Okay, here—"

And then the intercom crackles. "Des? Lucy? You guys done yet? We really need to get back to work on the Animus training if we want to get done here before things finish going to hell."

Rebecca's never had worse timing. Des lets Lucy go reluctantly and climbs to her feet, staggering over to the wall so she can hit the intercom button and answer. "Yeah, sorry, the time got away from us," she says.

"You sound pretty wrecked," Rebecca says cheerfully. "She's really giving it to you, huh?"

Des glances over and catches the pained face Lucy is making as she reaches for her pants. "I wouldn't get anywhere if you guys went easy on me, would I?"

Rebecca laughs. "Sounds about right," she says. "So get your ass up here so me and Shaun can work you over."

"Hard to resist an offer like that," Des says dryly. "We'll be right there." She steps away from the intercom and offers Lucy a hand up.

"Rotten timing," Lucy says with a wry smile.

Des shrugs. "Tell me about it," she says. She doesn't want to let go of Lucy's hand, and when she leans in for one more kiss, Lucy meets her halfway. "When we finish up for the night, maybe we can pick up where we left off?"

Lucy nods. "Love to."


End file.
